Happy Halloween!

can you find Gertie amongst the pumpkins?

Eternal life is eternal memory

"The nature of calendar time is linear; it is made up of durations that begin and end. The Celtic imagination always sensed that beneath time there was eternal depth. This offers us a completely different way of relating to time. It relieves time of the finality of ending. While something may come to an ending on the surface of time, its presence, meaning, and effect continue to be held and integrated into the eternal.

This is how spirit unfolds and deepens. In this sense, eternal time is intimate; it is where the unfolding narrative of individual life is gathered and woven. Eternal life is eternal memory; therefore it becomes possible to imagine a realm beyond endings where all that has unfolded is not canceled or lost, but where the spirit-depths of it are already arriving home." John O'Donohue To Bless the Space Between Us, p. 157
How encouraging is that!

Our own Brokenness

"I admire you Christians because when you see someone hungry and thirsty, you see Jesus.
When you see somebody in prison or in hospital you see Jesus.
When you see someone who is strange, a stranger or naked, you see Jesus.

What I don’t understand is that you don’t see Jesus in your own brokenness.
Why are the poor always outside of you?
Can’t you see that they are inside of you; in your hunger and thirst?
That you too are sick; that you too are imprisoned in your own fears and need for honour and power; that you too have strange things inside of you which you don’t understand; that you too are naked?” Carl Jung

Cairn

Cairn: a pile of rocks formed as a marker, or a place of spiritual reflection or a monument of sorts - they can be found all over the world as far back as the Bronze Age! This one marks the summit of a mountain. The Peace Cairn in Donegal Ireland is worth checking out. Have you ever built one?

The poem below was sent to me this week as a bookmark from Spiritual Directors International. It's beautiful!



CAIRNS
Eternal pilgrims we,
on the sometimes broken
sometimes silken
path
we call our lives.

Longing pilgrims we,
hungrily seeking
stones and rocks
all shapes and sizes
to point the way.

Blessed pilgrims we,
when the stories of our lives
sometimes broken
sometimes silken
are deemed cairns
by the one who truly listens.

Grateful pilgrims we,
gathering stones and rocks,
and with the one who truly listens
patiently creating
a cairn of balance
that reaches toward
heaven.

Wise pilgrims we,
as we bless the cairn
bless the sometimes broken
sometimes silken
path
we call our lives,
and know that
heaven is the gift
of welcoming
the broken and the silken
with equal measure.

Jennifer (Jinks) Hoffmann

Spiritual Directors International
http://www.sdiworld.org/

Gossip

One of today's Divine Office readings was from Ecclesiasticus 19:4-17 - an excellent section of advice regarding the perils of gossip. It advises that if you have heard something about another, it would be best to let it die with you. The following line struck me :) "Like an arrow stuck in a person’s thigh, so is gossip inside a fool."

All About Eve

Today's Saturday - Top Ten film is All About Eve, Joseph E. Mankeiwitcz's brilliant and timeless 1950 drama about greed, manipulation, and ambition.

One of my very favorite actresses, Bette Davis played the aging Broadway star, Margo Channing, who takes the unassuming Eve Harrington, (Anne Baxter) under her wing. But Eve schemes to take over Margo's roles on both Broadway and in her private life. Who hasn't known (or perhaps been) an Eve Harrington character in their life at some point?

It's easy to see why this film was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won 6 including Best Picture of the Year. A favorite quote from this movie is Bette Davis' line - "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night." which you can view here.

Rotten Apples

Why not
upset
the
apple cart?
If you don't
the apples
will
rot
anyway!

-Frank A. Clark

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pkmeco/248004214/